Last night I had the pleasure of watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, Licorice Pizza. I went into it with ecstatic excitement as it’s been a while since he had a movie out. And let me get it out of the way first so I can go into detail without holding the reader impatient throughout the rest for the verdict, I thought it was great. Not his best by any means, in my opinion 2012’s The Master is still his best work but I digress. So let’s now get into the nitty-gritty of the film and what I liked about it. Full disclosure, I won’t be going through the plot details and my nitpicks of the film as I’m a biased fan boy of PTA’s work.
First off, the story and the realization of it on the silver screen. I haven’t read the script as I’m not 19 anymore and my aspiration of becoming a playwright is long gone at this point in my life. With that being said I still felt like I knew what PTA was trying to paint here without having a looksie on the background. The story was about aging and how it affects or rather happens to different people, and the process of this aging was beautifully explored by putting it on contrast via our two main protagonist. Cooper Hoffman, son of a brilliant actor and frequent collaborator of PTA, late Phillip Seymour Hoffman(The Master himself) and Alana Haim of famed pop rock trio, Haim, plays the two main characters of the film. As newcomers to silver screen, both of them knocked it out of the park as far as performance as a lead goes.
Alana(Alana Haim) is a 25 y/o girl who struggles with adulthood and stuck in a dead end job without any plans for her future. While Gary Valentime(Cooper Hoffman) is a 15 y/o high school goer who seemingly has it all figured out, a hustler if you will, and quite confident about himself. They both meet at the very beginning of the film and the story starts to trickle from there with a beautiful epilogue at the very end of the film. The story flows quite well and naturally between the self discovery of these characters. It’s not as heavy a character study as some other PTA film by comparison but it falls among the ‘enjoyable to consume’ ones. I was on the fence about how they’re gonna approach the intimacy aspect of a love story given Cooper Hoffman was only 16/17 y/o at the time of filming and Alana Haim was 28/29 y/o. But to my surprise, it was done quite tastefully and innocently. Especially if you compare this aspect to a film like Notes on a Scandal(2006).
The supporting cast of this film was quite heavy hitting. Bradley Cooper plays Jon Peters, a now eccentric hollywood producer. Sean Penn plays as Jack Holden, a fictional self-centered adrenaline loving old hollywood producer. Benny Safdie plays the role of a closeted candidate for mayor’s office. All three of these actors brought unique and memorable performance to the film, but for me Bradley Coopers’ Jon Peter was the best among the three with a great callback to this Kevin Smith Hollywood story.
The 35mm cinematography was in all of it’s glory on PTA’s hand as expected. The soundtrack featured some good songs aptly used for scenes, but to my recollection at least one of them kind of missed the mark.
I’ve enjoyed the film thoroughly and the 2+ hours runtime didn’t feel like a drag for a character study. This film would’ve easily made my Top movies list for last year, had I seen it last year. I highly recommend this throwback movie to anyone looking for an escape on a weekend or if you just want to watch a simple feel-good movie(to each his own, i guess). As for a numbered verdict, I’d give it a solid 7/10.